How the Hula Girl Sings by Joe Meno Page A

a blue tarp on the front porch. I went up the walk to the front door and held my breath. I had no idea what I was going to say. I knocked just once. My shoulders tightened. A cool, dull light beamed from under the front door. I knocked again, then I stepped back from the door. It was completely silent. I knocked on the door once more and this time I heard the cheap locks undoing themselves and the cold clatter of it all. Monte’s old man swung the door open as far as the tiny gold security chain would give.
    His face was ugly. Not interesting ugly, not out of the ordinary, I mean. His face was plain and rotten from the inside. An ugliness that grew from the heart and weak blood. He jammed his face between the door. His black hair was greasy and graying.
    “Where’s the goddamn fire?” Monte’s old man asked. “And who the hell are you?”
    “Name’s Luce Lemay. I came to talk about your boy.”
    “Christ Jesus, what’s that kid done now?” He squinted his eyes, then nodded, and closed the door, unlocking the security chain. He opened the door again and I stepped inside. I dug my fists into my pants pockets, trying not to stare at his plastic feet. I looked around. The inside of the house was warm and awful-smelling. I could see an open bottle of sour mash from across the room and a rotten old sandwich, decomposing on a coffee table with only three working legs. I looked at Mr. Slates’s face again. He looked like hell. He patted me on the shoulder and turned, without saying a word, and wobbled toward the bathroom with his canes, shifting his weight from side to side. He made it inside and closed the door behind.
    The place was completely dark, except for the blue flicker of the TV. I could hear the buzz and flick as it switched from clearness to static. Monte’s old man kept coughing in the john, tearing up the back of his throat. He must have been doubled over the toilet, sick with liquor, I guess. He flushed and stepped out, wiping his slick mouth with the back of his hand. I nodded as he wobbled over and took a seat on the dirty gray flannel couch. He swore at the bugs and swatted at the rotten sandwich with his big hand.
    “Damn bugs,” he muttered, then gripped the open, half-emptied bottle of sour mash and took a long swig.
    “I know you, don’t I? Where do I know you from?” he muttered to the darkness around my head.
    “I dunno. I work at the gas station down the street.”
    Mr. Slates scratched his whiskered face, then nodded to himself. He snapped his fingers together hard, then pointed right at me.
    “I know you. I knowed your daddy. You’re the boy that ran that baby down.”
    “How’s that?” I mumbled.
    “You’re the boy that ran that baby down a few years back. Lemay? Tough break that was, pal. Running that baby down like that.”
    “It was an accident. It was all a mistake.”
    “That’s what I thought. Looks like the jury saw it different.” Mr. Slates rolled himself a smoke, packing the tobacco tight into the paper sleeve. He lit the cigarette and let the smoke roll around his head. “So what the hell are you doing in my house?” Monte’s old man grunted, staring at the TV.
    I felt my tongue grow hard, my fingers clench tight into fists. “I came to talk about your son.”
    “My son? My son? What’s that boy gone off and done now?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s about what’s been done to him.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Came into the gas station with a sore eye and busted lip. Said his daddy was the one that gave it to him.”
    “That so?” Monte’s old man took a short swig of sour mash and swished it from cheek to cheek. “What’s this got to do with you, pal?”
    “Nothing, I guess. Just don’t think you beating on a young boy like that is right.”
    “That so? I guess running down babies makes you an expert, huh?”
    I shook my head quick, trying to knock something loose.
    “I wanted to come talk to you first, before I got hold of the